It’s a funny thing, contradiction.
You’d think it would ruin a piece, wouldn’t you? But it doesn’t. Not at all. Instead, it’s what gives it life. Look at any great painting—a Bacon, a Bosch, or even a Caravaggio. There’s tension, a sort of unresolved push and pull that draws you in. The conversation between light and shadow. The friction between elegance and grotesque. It’s the unease, the off-balance, that makes it hum with energy.
My own work is full of these contradictions. (Sometimes I wonder if they’re even more important than the figures themselves.) Like the piece I did of a dragon—not your typical, mythic creature but something far more absurd. This one didn’t have the massive, leathery wings or scales glistening in chiaroscuro. No, this one had something almost goofy about it: a long, toothy grin set against a background of bright, chaotic swirls.
It’s a dragon, but also not. A hybrid, almost cartoonish in its simplicity. The eyes are wide—more curious than menacing. And yet, despite its playful, almost childlike appearance, there’s something unsettling about it. (Those teeth are a little too sharp. That gaze a little too fixed.) And that’s where the contradiction comes in: it’s humorous, but it’s not entirely safe.
Maybe that’s why I painted it the way I did—blue skin with these odd, thin stripes, as if it’s been bound by something unseen. Because it’s not just a dragon; it’s an exploration of what a dragon could be. Something hovering on the edge of two worlds. Playful and threatening. Silly and serious. I remember finishing that toothy smile, stepping back, and feeling the weight of its strange duality. Was it a predator? A trickster? Or just some harmless creature, grinning for no reason at all?
That’s the thing about contradiction—it’s a reflection of how we actually experience the world. Conflicted, unresolved. We’re filled with opposing forces every day: fear and hope, rage and gentleness, strength and fragility. It’s what makes us human. It’s also what gives art its depth.
So why fight it? Why not lean into the contradiction, let it spill out across the canvas? Trust that these tensions will create something true, something that resonates. I don’t try to tie it all up neatly. I let it be messy, let it contradict itself. Because that’s where the story is—in the shadows. In the spaces between the scales, the stripes, the teeth and the smile.
And that’s where the beauty is, too.